Resources

The Finance team within the Trust is no ordinary Finance team. Our Finance team play a key part in ensuring that the families and young people who rely on the services of the Trust receive the financial support that they need and deserve to ensure that they can get on with trying to fulfil their potential. The team is an integral part of the Operation of the Trust supporting social work, commissioning and placements teams to deliver high quality services within affordable budget by providing the understanding of what represents value for money for the Trust. Finally the team play a key part in ensuring that the working relationship with our Council colleagues and other third parties remains productive and collaborative so that they have a full understanding of the financial challenges faced by the Trust and ensure that the Trust gets the financial support it needs to continue to deliver positive outcomes for families and young people in Sandwell

The HR Team partners with colleagues from around the Trust to make sure the right people are recruited at the right time to achieve the Trust’s objectives and that the Trust’s people policies and procedures allow every individual to achieve their full potential free from prejudice.

We are involved in every part of an individual employments cycle, from the point an individual consider working at Sandwell through to when they leave.  The team provides the necessary employment administration e.g. new starter paperwork, processing promotions and making sure we all get paid on time through to being strategically involved to building a productive workforce and improving the retention rate within the Trust.  This includes the health, safety and wellbeing of each individual and ensuring compliance with employment laws and regulations we are required to follow.

Our doors are always open to understand what we can do to make Sandwell Children’s Trust a employer of choice. 

The Commission & Placements Team works with colleagues from around the Trust as well as local partner agencies, and those regionally & across the country. Our main role is in supporting operational services to identify services for children in care, children in need a those on the child protection register. These services may be residential, or foster care, provision in semi-independent or supported living accommodation, we commission and manage contract for all these services.

The Team also commission and contract manage services with organisations that support children & families at home and in the community.

As well as commissioning services for young people & families, the team are also responsible for procurement of services across the Trust these include – finance, HR, training, business support & IT.

Business Admin work in supporting everyone across this Trust from front line social workers to the CEO and Chair with a whole range of administrative tasks.  Business Admin consists of 6 Service areas they are: Secretariat (who support the Chair, Chief Exec, Directors and Heads of Service), Front Door Admin (who support Targeted Services, Emergency Duty Service, Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub and Safeguarding and Assessment Team workers), Care Management/Children with Disabilities (who support Care Management and CWDT workers, the mini-admin team support everyone in the Trust with reception duties, printing and posting, issuing IT equipment and car seats), Children in Care/Leaving Care and the Contact Centre (who support Looked after Children, Care Leavers and Contact arrangements for families), Quality Assurance Service/Learning & Development/Beyond Auditing (who support Quality and Assurance, the IRO service and learning and development colleagues) and finally Youth Offending Service/Multi Systemic Therapy/Family Solutions Team (who support Youth Offending, DECCA, Multi-Systemic Therapists and Family Solutions/Family Group Conferencing colleagues).

The Customer Experience Team does exactly what it says on the tin and facilitates, coordinates the experiences our service users may have. We have a direct role to ensure that complaints are dealt with effectively and compliments are shared and celebrated. This places our team in an excellent position to share learning from compliments and complaints across the Trust to identify any improvements needed and support the service to implement the learning. Through our close partnership with the Participation team we gather and provide feedback from young people, families and partners to ensure that their voices are heard and they inform and influence our service delivery.

The Systems Team provide support and development in all operational areas for EHM, LCS, ContrOCC and ChildView to meet the needs of the service to ensure that systems are up to date, to comply with relevant legislation and meet Trust requirements. The systems allow the practitioner to create, record and store relevant information in relation to the work we undertake with Children & Families. The Early Help System gives practitioners from different sectors appropriate access to key information to allow them to participate in the delivery of the most appropriate services and aids in a more integrated and multi-agency way of working which overcomes professional boundaries and barriers. LCS supports all aspects of social work with children which allow case management and record keeping for Children in Need, Child Protection, Children in Care, Fostering & Adoption. ContrOCC is a financial system that is integrated with LCS and our Corporate finance systems to make any relevant payments to Foster Carers and Children in Care. ChildView is the system used within the Youth Offending Service and records any interventions and support to enable positive outcomes for our Young People. We deliver training and offer a help desk functionality across all systems to provide support to the end user liaising with third party suppliers when necessary.

The Governance team work with the Executive Management Team, Board members and partners to ensure that the Trust meets its contractual obligations with Sandwell MBC, as sole member of the company, and its legal requirements outlined in the Articles of Association and Governance Side Agreement, which outlines the governance arrangements in place between the Secretary of State of Education and SMBC.  The Team work closely with the Chair of the Board and respective committee Chairs to coordinate and manage Board meetings and the supporting committees ensuring that key decisions are taken at the appropriate time and that they are accurately documented for audit purposes.  The work of the Governance Team enables EMT and ultimately the Trust Board to deliver the Trust’s purpose of improving the lives of children and young people.

The participation and engagement team work with our children, young people and staff to make sure everyone has a voice. They have developed the innovative ‘How Can I Help You’ participation strategy and are passionate about empowering our children in care, care leavers and anyone else we are working with.

As well as this they manage communications both inside and outside of the Trust…so whether it’s a blog, a website or a conference they will have been involved!